There’s no reason to rehash the gruesome details of the sex scandal that has rocked Roman Catholicism in the U.S. over the last couple of years. Suffice it to say, it is among the darkest hours for a church that has had many shameful ordeals in its past.
In the immediate wake of the scandals, church leaders appeared to resort to their worst instincts. Even after having been caught covering up for sexually abusive priests, and moving these dangerous predators from parish to parish without warnings or concern for future victims, many church officials resisted reforms, blamed victims, and hunkered down, hoping (praying?) that the scandals would blow over. They didn’t.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops took a bold and wise step last June by tapping former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R) to oversee an independent National Review Board responsible for addressing this crisis and monitoring how well the church was complying with a new national abuse policy. The idea, of course, was to ask Keating to help prevent such a crisis from happening again. It was the first smart move the bishops had made in years.
While I’m certainly no fan of Keating’s conservative political ideology, he was certainly the right man for the job of helping steer the church through this ordeal. First, Keating had experience and credibility as a political leader; White House insiders, for example, have acknowledged that Keating was Bush’s second choice as running mate in 2000. Second, Keating was a successful criminal prosecutor before entering state politics. And lastly, he is a lifelong, devout Catholic. No matter what Keating recommended in the way of reforms, no one could ever accuse him of harboring anti-Catholic animus.
Keating, unfortunately, grew frustrated. He mistakenly thought the church was anxious to change and adopt serious reforms. He quickly learned, as the New York Times noted today, that “the bishops still have all the power — to reassign or remove priests, to ignore or carry out the new policies, to withhold or release information about abusers.”
Keating found that his first task — gathering basic information on the church’s scandalous crimes — was being met with intense resistance and stonewalling, or as Keating put it, “foot-dragging.”
Perhaps understandably, Keating’s frustration led to an impolitic comment to the Los Angeles Times.
“I have seen an underside that I never knew existed. I have not had my faith questioned, but I certainly have concluded that a number of serious officials in my faith have very clay feet,” Keating said. “That is disappointing and educational, but it’s a fact.”
He added, “To act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will all come out.”
Obviously, comparing the U.S. Catholic hierarchy to the mafia is going to be controversial. The bishops, however, were so outraged by Keating’s remark, they called for his ouster. In specific, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, whom Keating suggested was resisting reform, said Keating’s comparison was “the last straw.”
Under intense pressure, Keating resigned from the National Review Board on Monday. He did not, however, go quietly.
“My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate,” Keating said in his resignation letter. “I make no apology. To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church.”
Good for him. The bishops forced out the one man who was working diligently and in good faith to address a crisis of their creation. He spoke candidly about his frustration and they forced his resignation.
Of course, no one could reasonably conclude that Keating’s departure was caused by one impassioned comment to the LA Times. Keating was leading an aggressive effort to bring sweeping — and entirely necessary — changes to a church that has committed horrific crimes. He was shaking things up too much and I believe the bishops used the La Cosa Nostra flap as an excuse to do what many of them wanted to do all along.
And speaking of the mafia, I was particularly pleased to see that Keating stuck to his guns upon departing, reinforcing his belief that the church has been following the “model of a criminal organization, not my church.” Indeed, I found his comparison quite apt.
Slate’s Tim Noah noted earlier this week the multiple similarities between the Catholic Church and the mafia. First Noah stipulates the obvious differences, such as the fact that the mafia kills people, while the church hasn’t committed mass murder in centuries (see The Crusades, The Inquisition, etc.).
Nevertheless, Noah points out several similarities between the two, including observations that both are “rigorously hierarchical and led by individuals whose authority is never to be questioned. Both place a heavy emphasis on omerta, and both were hard-hit by the decline during the second half of the 20th century in institutional loyalty. Both are highly ceremonial (a point that’s made to wonderful effect in The Godfather’s climactic and very bloody baptism montage).”
I would maintain, however, that Noah doesn’t go quite far enough in the comparison to highlight the point Keating was trying to make. Both institutions commit terrible crimes and then go to great lengths to shield perpetrators from justice.